Race/Racism

Trump’s four pillars immigration reform is centered on bringing an end to an important and humane feature of current US immigration policies, family reunification. The skeleton of the plan was released during the President’s State of the Union Address, but it is still lacking details. The White House “four pillars” of immigration reform include: “a…

The U.S. vetoed yet another U.N. Security Council to shield Israel from any consequences for the continued occupation and annexation of Jerusalem and wholesale violations of international law. Trump’s recent recognition and decision to transfer the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is undertaken to force an acceptance of Israel’s vision of itself and the city, a…

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of Balfour Declaration, Palestinians under occupation and in the diaspora are due an unequivocal apology from the British government. However, on October 29, 2017, the current Tory Government Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson struck in The Telegraph a celebratory note calling the Balfour Declaration an “incontestable moral goal: to…

Imperial Britain Gave Palestine to the Zionists When It Was Still Part of the Ottoman Empire. On Nov. 2, 2017, Palestinians mark the hundred-year anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a letter from British foreign secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild that committed Britain to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine….

The proclivity of governments and civil society institutions across the globe to engage the Muslim subject has created a set of discourses that seek to humanize the Muslim in the face of Islamophobia and rising tide of bigotry. While the discourses were produced by diverse forces and interests, the running thread is nevertheless rooted in…

America’s entanglement with race is the present absent moral river steadily flowing underneath the nation’s feet, but no one is ready to dig below the surface until it bursts in the open to disrupt the “normal” and otherwise “peaceful” daily life routines. “Normal” means that race is not a topic of conversation or a factor…

In the 1980s while I was an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University, I had the opportunity to meet and talk to refugees from El Salvador, Columbia and Nicaragua, who were part of the campus community. At the time, the civil wars and Cold War proxy regional conflicts had led many civilians to flee…

The current debate engulfing the University of California at Berkeley, the United States and the world as a whole is not unique or new, and it is as old as the human experience itself. Certainly, free speech and Berkeley will forever be connected. The 1960s’ Free Speech Movement was born on campus, and has shaped…

Since its founding, the United States of America has constantly struggled to define its identity and to classify who belongs and who are the ostracized. From the first days of the republic, African Americans and Native Americans were not part of “We the People” and were denied full membership in the newly formed society, while…

The complex and often contentious relationship between American Jews and Muslims witnessed two momentous events that produced divergent results and emotions. On the one hand, anti-Semitic attacks on a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, brought about a rapid $120,000 online fundraising drive in the Muslim community and hundreds of volunteers to repair damage to…